Male Netta rufina x Anas penelope

Red-crested Porchard x Wigeon

Punapäänarsku x Haapana koiras

(c) Harry J Lehto

Photographed in Hjo, Sweden, in February, 2001

General comments about the bird: Eye: Dark chocolate brown, although appears very dark in most
photographs Bill: Lower mandible black, upper mandible wigeonlike grey, expect for
dark tip, base and cutting edge. Culmen also black more of less from tip to
base.Feet: In water with a clear greenish cast. On ground grey.
In photographs somewhere in between.Head: Dark with a strong purple glosssy half moon. In certain light
this appeared to have a clear green shine instead of purple.
Black neck collar, which appeared to extend to hindneck and continue to the
crown and all the way to the forehead. The black crown sometimes showed
a purple (sometimes green) gloss. Face, earcoverts and throat black in
general, but with 4
separate yellowish/goldish spots. The largest one at the rear lower end of
ear coverts, a small one well below the eye, one at the base of the bill, and
a very short and narrow stripe above the eye The rest of plumage: Pretty much as in the photograph. Note the
reddish/coppery breast and similarly colored undertail coverts.
Mantle and flanks have fine vermiculation, not well visible in the scanned photos.
Feeding behaviour appeared to be as in Anas ducks.

Coloration of wings is approximately as follows: Outerwing shows an
aythya-like (A ferina/nyroca, Netta rufina) -like wingbar. The Inner wing shows
a speculum. It appears as violet in one of the photographs
(second photo below),
some other photographs show it obviously as green, but never dark blue.
Note also that the "violet" in the speculum is very different from the
"purple" in the head (also in the second photo).
Sometimes no bright colors are visible in the speculum. We should note
that these same colors were also noticed in the field. This is similar to the
female A crecca x platyrhynchos (Teal x Mallard) seen in Naantali,
Finland during the past few winters. The upper greater and median coverts show
a considerable pale area. Underwing is mostly white with a dark edge to the
whole wing.